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Satire loses in "War, Inc."

This movie comes advertised as a political satire, based on the American occupation of Iraq, and sure enough, near the beginning of the movie, we see Dan Ackroyd as a Dick Cheney-like figure delivering a televised rant while sitting on the toilet. There are probably more effective ways to satirize Cheney, but I suspect that &quot;satire,&quot; for the writers of this film (including star John Cusack), really means, let's kick back and have some fun.

This movie comes advertised as a political satire, based on the American occupation of Iraq, and sure enough, near the beginning of the movie, we see Dan Ackroyd as a Dick Cheney-like figure delivering a televised rant while sitting on the toilet. There are probably more effective ways to satirize Cheney, but I suspect that "satire," for the writers of this film (including star John Cusack), really means, let's kick back and have some fun.

Thus the very beginning of this movie shows Cusack in a bar in Nunavut, drinking a shot glass full of hot sauce and then suddenly turning and shooting three Germans sitting beside him in the bar.

This has nothing to do with satire, and everything with resurrecting Cusack's role as a hitman in Grosse Pointe Blank. In his embodiment as a hitman thenand now in War Inc., where Cusack plays Brand Hauser, a hitman for a corporation owned by the Cheney-like character, he is one cool dude.

Equipped with superhuman fighting skills, he is wry, self-deprecating, philosophical and fearless. His only sign of weakness is the hot sauce he bolts to deaden feeling when he's about to kill somebody.

There's much semi-serious talk about "redemption" and "suffering" and what a "terrible world" we live in. And yes, there is an element of political awareness as Brand poses as an American trade show producer in the fictional country of Turaqistan, overrun by troops hired by the same corporation that has assigned him to kill an oil minister.

Here he meets journalist Natalie Hegalhuzen (Marisa Tomei) and a Britney Spears-like pop tart (Hilary Duff), who drops a scorpion down her pants for some reason.

Finally there's a perfunctory flashback involving an evil CIA man (Ben Kingsley) that purports to show the reason for Brand's loss of innocence. It all adds up to a fast pace, lots of shooting, and a movie that, in its heart, is as corrupt as the politics it attempts to satirize.

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